Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme has threatened to withdraw the state's stake in the Fortis banking group in response to demands from several shareholders who have questioned the legality of the bailout.
Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme has threatened to withdraw the state's stake in the Fortis banking group in response to demands from several shareholders who have questioned the legality of the rescue operation approved by the government.
"Fortis was two millimeters away from bankruptcy. If the shareholders want to return to that situation, they will have to solve the problems themselves," Leterme warned in an interview with "Het Laatste Nieuws" reported by the Belga news agency.
The prime minister reacted to a complaint from a law firm representing some 1.300 small shareholders of Fortis in Belgium, who believe that the partial nationalization of the bank and its sale to the French entity BNP Paribas was not regular, as the general assembly was not convened to decide on the operation.
For the time being, the Brussels Commercial Court prosecutor's office has sided with the complainants and has requested the appointment of an administrator for the entity until the extraordinary general meetings scheduled for December 1 and 2.
Leterme has assured that if the Court ultimately declares the sale illegal, "the State will withdraw its financial contribution and that will be good news for the budget."
"If we had done nothing, Fortis shares wouldn't be worth a penny today," the Prime Minister stressed, adding that "the shareholders who are protesting now have quickly forgotten that they also bear some responsibility for the events, since they were at the general meeting that approved the purchase of the Dutch bank ABN by 98% of the votes" last year.
A few months after acquiring the Dutch entity along with Santander and the Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis, hit by financial turbulence, had to be rescued with a public intervention.
To prevent its collapse, it was first the target of coordinated action by the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, but later the Netherlands decided to nationalize the entire business in its country, something that Belgium and Luxembourg also partially did.
These two countries then agreed with BNP to sell most of their banking assets to the French entity.
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